“Eclipse,” “Wool” Take Humanity Underground

Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment has optioned Zack Kaplan’s Top Cow comic “Eclipse” with plans to turn it into a TV series. Marc Silvestri and Matt Hawkins will executive produce the show set in a world where a solar flare has scorched the Earth and driven the human population underground.

Daytime surface conditions are monitored by workers like David Baxter wearing special suits that protect them from the sun’s deadly radiation. Baxter’s solitary patrol of the empty cityscape is interrupted when he finds the scorched remains of someone left outside to burn – now, he must solve the murder himself.

The news comes as AMC has begun development of its own TV series, one based on Hugh Howey’s novel “Wool” and the subsequent books in the nine-book ‘Silo’ series, which also sees humanity having been forced underground – this time due to toxic air on the surface of the planet.

The story follows Holston, the sheriff of the subterranean city Silo which extends one hundred forty-four storeys beneath the surface. LaToya Morgan (“Into the Badlands,” “Turn: Washington’s Spies”) will executive produce the project in addition to writing the pilot, while Howey is attached as a producer.